Aristotelian and Neoplatonic Ethics (1/12/2022) – Between Athens and Alexandria

Online Lecture

Aristotelian and Neoplatonic Ethics Between Alexandria and Baghdad

December 1, 2022

Lecture will take place on Zoom
7-9pm Athens & Alexandria
6-8pm Paris
5-7pm Oxford
12-2pm New York

Bibliotheca Alexandrina | Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies

Abstract

The Arab learned men had at their disposal a wonderful survey of the books circulating in the capital of the Abbasid empire: the Book of the Catalogue by Ibn al-Nadim (end of the 10^th cent.). Here, in the entry on Aristotle, a “Summary by the Alexandrians” of the Nicomachean Ethics is mentioned. A convoluted history of transmission of a work which is lost in Greek begins with this piece of information. The talk discusses the data left in Arabic and Latin, as well as the possibility, suggested by some, that the Arabic tradition bears the traces of Porphyry’s lost commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics.

Cristina D’Ancona (University of Pisa)

Cristina D’Ancona – Department “Civiltà e forme del sapere”, University of Pisa. Her teaching includes late Antique philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, and Arabic Philosophy. Between 2010 and 2015 she acted as the P.I. of the ERC Project Ideas, Advanced Grant “Greek into Arabic. Philosophical Concepts and Linguistic Bridges”. Her fields of research include Greek Neoplatonism and Medieval Philosophy, both Arabic and Latin.